Mass Active Object Importing

[artician]

Is there a way to easily and cleanly import a large number of active object images?
I am dealing with a character for a game that moves in 8 directions, with 8 frames of animation making just the walk cycle 64 frames. Later on this character will have attached images accompanying it (equipped items, etc) meaning there will be 64 more frames for each sub-object, just for the walk cycle.

I was hoping to find a way to import these images easily. I already have to leave the action point and hotspot alone unless I want to suffer through hand-placing it for every... single... frame.... There must be an easier way!

Thanks for any help!

[Simon_K]

you can use the program "easy macro recorder" for importing the frames
with this and a windows calculator i made a very similar job (with more directions and frames :P)

but, sometimes i had to place the action point for every picture, because the program doesnt know the "hand" of my player ^.^

[Pkeod]

If you are importing a number of frames of an animation you can click "import as an animation" in the import options then MMF will find your files and import them. You just need to name them 1.png 2.png ... 6.png (file name can be anything supported).

MMF3 will support many more importing features.

[RayMarble]

Or use the "box mode" where you can set up the hotspot etc in your animation (at least the Help claims you should be able to do so).

[artician]

Hi.

Thank you very much for your replies! There were very helpful!

I have been importing them as animations, so thankfully I never had to import one at a time. But when I have to import hundreds of animations it gets tedious.

EDIT - Simon, that Macro application was perfect. It will make this whole process great.

EDIT - RayMarble, box mode sounds like exactly what I need, unfortunately the method I am using to generate my frames only spits out individual image files. They are numbered so I can import them easily, but unless I want to manually place them all on a sheet in photoshop afterwards I have to rely on the macro app that Simon suggested. Too much work.

When MMF3 is supposed to be released?

Thank you again!

[Locaz00]

I think MMF3 hasn't started to be writen yet... so..we will have to wait ^^

[RayMarble]

You can also write a macro for Photoshop that'll just convert your assets. I suppose this can be a bit tedious if you do lot of updating since you'll have to run the converter every time (either from Photoshop or you can create that "autoamtic" thingy that calls Photoshop, forgot it's name) ... I think new Photoshop even allows exporting of anims? In which case you wouldn't even need a script.

Alternatively use a software that is geared towards sprite making and supports export of both spritesheets and individual images from an animation like Cosmigo's Pro Motion (that's what I use for spriting).